


No More Escapes

by Evie_adams273



Series: A Thousand Different Delphis [1]
Category: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Delphi, Delphi couldn't follow Voldemort, Gen, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, I saw the show again, a little bit gory, hope you like it, i did a drawing, inspired by Maddie's Delphi, more suicidal than I thought she'd be, not featuring Draco like normal, this is probably a bit too chaotic, very headstrong Delphi, visit from Hermione
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-28 22:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21399916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evie_adams273/pseuds/Evie_adams273
Summary: After her arrest and imprisonment, Delphi starts to think about why. Or rather, what drove her so far. She couldn't really understand any of it, and she couldn't help but care.But not about much.She could only care about what would happen now.-The first in a (possibly not-in-order) series inspired by Madeleine Walker's Delphi (London - Year Four).
Relationships: Delphi & Euphemia Rowle, Delphi & OC, Delphi & Rodolphus Lestrange, Delphi (Harry Potter) & Hermione Granger, Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Series: A Thousand Different Delphis [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542787
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	No More Escapes

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: suicide, abuse, something that could be interpreted as self-harm, blood

_“What was your name, dear?”_

_Silence. _

_“I don’t know. Euphemia never gave me a name.”  
_

_“What do you want to be called?”  
_

_“Delphi,” I say softly. “My name is Delphi.”_

* * *

  
A number. She had been reduced to a number. A number on the back of what was more a sack than an item of clothing. She hadn’t even been allowed to keep her necklace. What hurt most about that was that they hadn’t even looked as if they were going to confiscate it until she betrayed the knowledge that it had sentimental value.

But now it was gone. It was all gone. And she had been left alone to try to sleep in a freezing cell. She couldn’t sleep. Her mind kept her too busy to sleep. But she had to. She had to try, because if she didn’t, then she would end up causing herself harm . Something her captors would take notice of and mend. No. She had to keep herself healthy until she had the means to end her own life. Until she knew she would succeed.

There was no one coming to save her. There would be no one there to help her if she managed to get herself out. There never had been anyone else. If she tried to escape alone, she would be caught. She would be caught immediately , because she knew that, no matter what her plan was, her first instinct would be to get back to her father again. The Ministry was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.

Before, it hadn’t mattered that she had been completely alone. Everything she had done, she had done by herself, and she had done fighting the entire world of people who were supposed to help her.

But it mattered now. Now, there needed to be someone else there to hide her. There needed to be someone there to keep her from making a stupid decision. Because she would make a stupid decision if left to her own devices. 

She doubted that anyone even knew that she had been arrested. Not yet. They had all cut her out years ago. No one even knew that she was involved in tipping off Harry Potter about Theodore Knott. Anonymously, of course . But she had still done it. It was easier to steal from the Ministry than any ex-Death Eater. The Ministry didn’t know she existed. Or they hadn’t known. Before .

They did now. Now that she had tried to kill just about everyone involved.

And they probably wouldn’t even give her the decency of a trial. Not that they needed to. The people who would have been in charge of trialling and imprisoning her were the same people she had tried to kill. That probably constituted as enough evidence to avoid a trial .

Still, she would have liked to see the outside of Azkaban once more. Or something other than four stone walls and a window. The window was the worst thing. It let the sea spray in and, given the position of the bed, it was rare that the mattress and blanket were not damp.

On day eight of being alone , she started to mutter to herself. She started trying to work out how to end her own life without alerting the guards. There weren’t many options, and she knew her best one was to wait for something sharp enough to slit her wrists with. That would do the trick, and they wouldn’t realise in.

She lay back on the floor again, wrapping her arms around herself. She had never really been free. Never truly free. So, really, she knew she should have been used to the mess around herself. But she wasn’t. 

_I sit up, taking a deep breath. My bedroom door has been locked for several_ _ days now. Food appears once a day, and I’ve just about learnt to ration it out over the twenty four hours. There isn’t a lot but I can’t tell if I’m actually suffering for it. It’s not like this is anything new. _

_Euphemia has always hated me_ _She’s never tried to look after me. The only decent thing I think she has ever done to help me is to_ _ teach me to read and write, and even that came laden with threats and taunts and fear. _

_I don’t even know what I’ve done to annoy her this time. She’s just locked me up for no apparent reason. Maybe she just felt like it. Whatever it is, though, I’m not going to try and change her mind. I have no interest in getting hurt, and I’m really not that bored here._ _ That’s something. _

_Sometimes, when I see her go out the gate, I climb out the window. She doesn’t know that I can fly. I don’t know why I can, but I’m not going to share that secret_ _. I’d rather keep it to myself and occasionally fly around the garden in an attempt to get some fresh air. _

_I haven’t ever left. I don’t know what is beyond the wall at the edge of the grounds, and I have very little interest in finding out. Sometimes Euphemia has guests, and they’re always horrific. If that is what the world is like, I’d much rather take my chances here._

_She’ll kick me out eventually. Or she’ll kill me. Either way, I don’t really care._

Delphi shivered. It was getting colder. Of course it was getting colder. She was in Azkaban, in the North Sea, and she had been arrested on Halloween. Of course it was getting colder.

She drew her knees up to her chest, flinching as her icy skin touched another part of itself. The cold would likely become lethal soon but she didn’t ever complain to the guards. It wasn’t as if Harry Potter or any of his servants would do anything to help her. And something being lethal worked in her favour.

She had meant it when she had asked to be killed. Despite the crazed laughter, and the spitting and hissing, it had been a serious request. She had devoted her entire life to attempting to find out a piece of information was true, and if she couldn’t do that, then she had nothing to live for.

She had dragged herself through on this one idea since she was sixteen. She had taught herself magic and she had planned every action she had ever taken. All to get to one thing. All to find out if anyone at all cared about her. If she couldn’t have that, she truly didn’t want to live.

If she couldn’t have that, she was existing solely for the purpose of rotting in a jail cell for all time.

Tears started to swim in her eyes and she blinked them back instinctively. No one had ever seen her cry. And no one would ever see her cry.

Crying meant that she was weak. Crying meant that she wasn’t strong enough. Crying meant that she couldn’t ever be considered as any sort of leader. Supposedly.

In the short amount of time she had spent with another person that she wasn’t lying to, they had reiterated that idea over and over. And despite what that person had then done, and despite how wrong she knew their actions were, she still didn’t ever stop to think that maybe, crying could be okay.

She looked up as the cell door opened, closing her eyes again as a guard walked in, set down a plate of food, and walked out again, locking the door behind himself. Once upon a time, she would have jumped at the fact that she had been offered a meal. But she couldn’t bring herself to stand now.

It was too cold. It was too difficult. It wasn’t worth the effort. 

The food wouldn’t be warm. It would be barely edible. It wasn’t worth the effort it would take to get to it.

And she wasn’t hungry anyway.

She wrapped her arms around herself again and closed her eyes. Sleep was something she had gotten better at since being arrested. She had never really slept before. Not regularly and properly. Just the occasional nap in between planning sessions and meal times. Most days she would miss breakfast. But her plans had advanced. And she had come very, very close to being successful.

That was over now, but she could still pretend. She could still tell herself what it would have been like to succeed. And if she told herself enough, maybe it wouldn’t matter that she was unloved and uncared for and destined to spend the rest of her life in the same room.

She found it surprisingly easy to slip off to sleep.

* * *

_I open the door when the shouting starts. It’s Euphemia shouting, and she isn’t directing at me. I know that my curiosity isn’t good for my health, especially when she’s this angry, but I don’t care. I’ve got very little sense of self-preservation when there is very little to have self-preservation for. _

_I am sixteen. I have never left this house. I know that I am sixteen solely because of a handwritten record that I found on a stroke of luck. I managed to steal it when she got angry. I don’t think she really cares. It’s more the principle of the thing. But she also can’t be bothered to follow up on it._

_She knows it won’t make a difference. _

_Stealing books is also how I learnt about the rest of the world. Or, how I learnt about an incredibly idealised version of it that I don’t really believe in. The foundations of the world may well work that way, but I don’t honestly believe it can be as kind and caring as the books make it out to be._

_I don’t care about finding out, personally. I couldn’t make a life for myself. I know almost nothing about magic. Sure, I can fly and, if I’m willing to put some effort in, delve into Euphemia’s mind. But the things that the school teaches, Charms and Transfiguration and Potions and all that, I cannot even begin to start that. Mainly because I do not own a wand._

_As soon as I poke my head around the staircase, I can see the source of the shouting. _

_Euphemia is shouting and screaming at a man who stands calmly in the centre of the hallway. He’s wearing rags and he looks thinner than me. And, somewhat unsurprisingly, she’s just screaming at him. _

_Eventually, she stops, and the man glances up at me, smirking. I don’t move. I don’t care if Euphemia gets angry. If it actually mattered, I could fight back. If it actually mattered, I could spill the secrets I’ve been hiding._

_If they are even secrets anymore. Every time I’ve come close to getting in trouble recently, I’ve told myself this same mantra, and yet she hasn’t ever hurt me. Maybe she knows. Or maybe she hates me so much that I’m not worth expending energy on anymore.  
_

_“Well,” the man smirks. “She’s a tad pathetic.”  
_

_“Believe me, I know.”  
_

_“May I?”  
_

_“Do what you want.”_

_The man walks towards me, though his ‘walk’ up the stairs is, somewhat, a limp. When he reaches me, he takes my chin and I stare him coolly in the eye. If he wants me to be scared, he’ll have to try a little harder than that.  
_

_“Do you feed her?”  
_

_“Sometimes.”  
_

_“I could take her off your hands. It would probably make your life a little easier.”  
_

_“Please do. I won’t even charge you for her.”  
_

_“Well, you’d know I couldn’t afford it anyway.”_

_I stare at the two of them. Between them, they’ve just decided the next part of my life, without even attempting to communicate it with me, despite the fact that I am stood in front of them. I glare at Euphemia and she rolls her eyes.  
_

_“Go and get your things,” she mutters.  
_

_“I–”  
_

_“I do know about the books you’ve been stealing from the library. Take them. Merlin knows I don’t need them.”_

She didn’t know how long she had been asleep for when she woke up. It was difficult to tell with the window so high up, and with the darkness of the clouds, it became near impossible. She didn’t sit up, despite the ever-present chill in the air. Lying on the floor didn’t help. But she didn’t have the energy to walk around and warm herself up.

So, she just stayed there, staring at the ceiling. It, very unsurprisingly, had not changed since she had last stared at it. She would need to find something else to occupy her thoughts soon. There were only so many things she could spot in the room. She would need something soon, or she would end up doing something stupid.

If she wanted to take her own life, she had to remain tactical. Everything had to be planned to the minute. Everything had its place in her plans, her plan of war. Even killing herself was now a battle manoeuvre, though only she would benefit from it.

Maybe the Potters and Malfoys would too.

She sat up slowly as the cell door opened again. It wasn’t the time she was used to it opening, and that knowledge somehow gave her the strength to stand, though she leant against the wall. The water dripped down her back but she tried to ignore it.

Years ago, when she had first met Rodolphus Lestrange , she wouldn’t have been afraid. But that was a long time ago. Since then, she had been abandoned by more people than she cared to think about. Since then, she had raised herself in a derelict shack because there had been nothing else. Since then, she had carved her own wand and taught herself how to cast every curse that she knew.

And she had learnt how to be scared. She told herself that it was good for her. She told herself that the fear was healthy. But the fear combined with desperation wasn’t.

Not that she could remember the last time she had been healthy.

Two guards entered the cell, walking directly to her. They seized her silently, starting to pull her back towards the door, and she went with them, unable to fight. Wherever they were taking her, whatever it meant for her, she didn’t care.

It didn’t matter if she was safe or not. It didn’t matter if she ended up dead or alive. It didn’t matter .

Once upon a time, she would have been determined not to give up, no matter what happened. Once upon a time, she would have fought to restart her plans and continue bringing back her father. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have mattered that she was alone. She would still have believed that she could come back from something like this.

But now she didn’t have the strength to believe that.

She didn't even have the strength to walk forward at the pace that the guards were moving.

Her feet had started to drag and she felt incredibly dizzy. She stumbled a few times, relying on them to catch her and stop her tumbling to the floor. She couldn’t stop shaking. Every other step, her knee would give way and she would stumble further. 

It continued as they walked down the corridors, getting continually slower, until Delphi sagged between the guards, unable to take her own weight, and unable to stop the world around her going dark.

_“I don’t understand,” I’m starting to snap now. “You told me about the prophecy. I thought you wanted me to complete it.”  
_

_“What gave you that impression?” Rodolphus sneers. “You shouldn’t trust people so easily.”  
_

_“You told me something about myself, and you’ve done more caring in two weeks than Euphemia did in sixteen years.”  
_

_“That was my mistake, and yours was trusting me.”_

_I stare at him in disbelief, almost unwilling to accept the fact that he’s trying to turn me from my one chance to meet my parents. I cannot understand it. He must value them, because he’s told me about this. But trying to turn me away from it now means that he doesn’t value their leadership, even after claiming so much of their greatness._

_And I don’t understand that._

_“What about your leader?” I look at him. “What about serving him? In a better world.”  
_

_“You have lived in one house all your life. You don’t know anything about the _ _“You see, the thing is,” Rodolphus grabs my chin, pulling me closer, “I’d love to see your dear father again, but I am not desperate. I am content to live in this world.”  
_

_“Then why won’t you let me try?”  
_

_“Because you are not my daughter. You are my step-daughter. You are the illegitimate daughter of my whore of a wife. And I would rather settle for a little suffering than watch you get a happy ending.”_

_I step away from him, spitting at his feet. He laughs, rolling his eyes. He doesn’t care. Why would he care? Why would anything I do make any difference to him? He’s known me for two weeks, and he’s ready to walk away._

_But I’m not going back to Euphemia. Whatever happens, I am not going back to her. I would rather die.  
_

_“If you walk away,” I say, “I won’t care. I’ll still find a way. I’ll still get back to them.”  
_

_“Why? Why do you care about him?”  
_

_“He’s my father. They’re my parents. They’ll care about me.”  
_

_He laughs again. “No one cares about you.”_

The first thing that Delphi noticed was how incredibly warm she was. She had not been this comfortable in weeks. The bed wasn’t damp. She wasn’t shivering uncontrollably. The only part that assured her she was definitely still alive was the cuff around her wrist. 

She opened her eyes, sitting up slowly and looking around. Despite the fact that they had been taking her somewhere, she was now sat back in the same cell, which surprised her somewhat – they didn’t seem like the sort of people to give up simply because the person had passed out. But more to her interest was the fact that Hermione Granger was sat on the other side of the room, watching her silently.

She glared at her instinctively, looking away. It wasn’t worth her time of day. None of it was worth her time of day. Because of what had happened, she was now further from death.

“What?” she muttered, leaning back against the wall.

“Eat something.”

“No.”

Silence.

“Eat something.”

“I’ve got a life sentence,” Delphi muttered. “That stands whether I live eighty years or eighty days . Why don’t you just make it easier for everyone and let me die?”

“Because there are things we don’t understand that we need to understand,” Granger said quietly. “And I was hoping you might cooperate with me.”

“Why would I do that?” Delphi rolled her eyes. “Why would I want to help you when you’re literally doing the opposite of the only thing I want anymore.” 

Silence fell and Delphi lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling for the umpteenth time. Whatever Granger wanted to know, she didn’t care. She wouldn’t have the knowledge they needed.

“Was the prophecy real?”

“Does it matter?”

“Who gave it to you?”

“Someone who abandoned me immediately after telling me about it.”

“Is that why you are a shadow, even among Voldemort’s followers?”

“A shadow implies they know I exist,” Delphi muttered, smiling bitterly.

“Could you expand?”

“Will you kill me if I do?”

There wasn’t a response, but Delphi didn’t care. She knew what the answer was. She knew they wouldn’t put her out of her misery. She knew they viewed it as a punishment. She knew they didn’t, and would never, understand that she had been in this sort of loneliness since the day she had been born.

“Did Scorpius and Albus tell you what I said in the Owlery?” she asked.“They haven’t spoken about what happened. We haven’t pushed them.”

“Shame,” Delphi murmured, “but fair enough.”

“We opened an investigation into you–”

“Into me? I’m honoured .”

“– into you when we found about the kidnap. We have found nothing.”

“So you’re asking me because your Aurors can’t do their jobs.”

Granger, yet again, remained silent, and Delphi rolled her eyes. Every single time they pretended to be kind to get what they wanted, she saw through it. She knew what would happen. She knew that they would leave as soon as they had what they wanted.

Meeting her father, earning his respect and love, had always been something she had promised herself she wouldn’t rest her existence on. She seemed to now, but she didn’t like to acknowledge it. She didn’t like to confront reality.

_“You look lonely.”_

_I look up to see a woman standing beside me, smiling softly. And then I look away. I can’t be bothered to make conversation. I haven’t slept in days, and I don’t even know why I’m in here; I’ve got no money.  
_

_“Are you okay?”  
_

_“Piss off,” I mutter._

_The woman ignores me and sits down anyway, and I roll my eyes. People just have to be inconvenient, don’t they? People just have to carry on when they know they’re not wanted. People just have to be a nuisance.  
_

_“Would it help if I said please?” I glare at her.  
_

_“Probably not,” she smiles again. “You’ve been here for a while. Is something going on?”  
_

_“How long have you been watching me?”  
_

_“My entire shift. Do you want to talk?”  
_

_“I’ve just met you.”  
_

_“And after this you never have to see me again and you can be safe in the knowledge that whatever you tell me stays secret.”_

_I laugh bitterly. She can’t honestly expect me to believe that. Any of that. Nothing is ever a secret unless only one person knows. Nothing is ever a secret unless you keep it buried in your chest and never tell a soul. Nothing is ever a secret_ _._

_And yet, she still doesn’t move. I want her to. I need her to. But I don’t think I can move instead. If I move, I have to leave the warmth. If I move, I have to find somewhere to sleep tonight. If I move, I have to keep going. _

_I can’t find the strength to do that._

_“Fine,” I mutter. “I’m trying to work out whether or not to make a decision and it was cold so I came in here. Happy?”  
_

_“What decision do you have to make?”  
_

_“Why do you give a fuck? I have never met you before.”  
_

_“Yes, but you don’t look like you’re old enough to have left home, so it’s partially a health and safety concern as well.”  
_

_“You’re not concerned,” I snap. “You’re definitely not concerned.”  
_

_“Why do you think that?”  
_

_“Because no one is ever concerned. No one ever gives a shit about anyone else.”  
_

_“I don’t think you’ve met many people.”  
_

_“I’ve met enough to know.”_

_And I have. Euphemia. Rodolphus. A couple of others since those two abandoned me. None of them cared. None of them cared about me in any way. Why should I believe that this woman cares? Why should I believe that anyone cares?  
_

_“How old are you?”  
_

_“Younger than you.”_

_There is, quite literally, nothing I would like more than for her to piss off and leave me alone. I have to make this decision, and I don’t even know how to start. _

_Turn myself in for something I don’t even understand._

_Or try, with one last desperate bid, to get someone to help me fulfil the prophecy._

_I don’t know what to do. If I turn myself in, I’ll probably be in trouble. If I turn myself in, I’ll be faced with the hundreds of people who defeated my father, and will therefore probably detest my existence_ _. I don’t care whether they hate me or not. I just don’t want to get hurt. I’m terrified of getting hurt. And if Euphemia reflects the world, they’ll probably try to kill me. Or come close to it_ _._

_But if I try to find help, if I take the route down that last, desperate bid, where will that take me? Where will I end up if I start into the darkness? I don’t like the idea of hurting people. I don’t like the idea of causing people pain. But he is my father. He is my father _ _and he would love me. So really, the question is whether it’s worth it. Whether whatever I’d have to do is worth_ _ it to get back to him.  
_

_“If you’re trying to make a decision,” the woman says quietly, “you don’t have to go into detail, but I think you should do whatever will make you happier.”  
_

_“Why?”  
_

_“Because if you’ve spent this long mulling over it, then you don’t know what the right decision is. Which means that there isn’t one. So do what you think will make you happier.”_

“You’re lucky,” Delphi said quietly, the words slipping out before she could stop them.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re lucky,” she repeated. “You’ve always known someone cares about you. You’ve always been sure that someone will give a shit.”

“Have you not?”

“Would I have done this if I had someone?”

“I don’t know enough about you to judge that.”

“Oh fuck,” Delphi muttered. “I’ve just walked into this, haven’t I?”

Granger didn’t respond.

“Fine. Okay. What have I got to lose?”

More silence.

“Raised, in the loosest of senses, by Euphemia Rowle. Met Rodolphus Lestrange. He abandoned me a whopping two weeks later. I’ve pretty much been on my own since then.”

“Working on resurrecting Voldemort?”

“Kind of. Had to teach myself to – do – magic first.”

“You taught yourself?”

“Am I on the Hogwarts register?”

“You could have been taught.”

“I wasn’t. Anyway, yes. Taught myself magic. Stalked the Potters a bit. Befriended Albus. Kidnapped him and his idiotic friend.”

She rolled her eyes at the shadow of a reproachful look that crossed Granger’s face. It was almost as if Granger hadn’t yet realised that she had quite literally tried to kill the both of them. Calling Scorpius Malfoy an idiot was really the least of her crimes . Crimes. She had committed crimes. And she didn’t really have a justification.

“That’s the thing,” she muttered, “I know what I did was wrong.”

That was the truth. That was the ultimate truth. She knew, she had always known, that she was making the wrong decision. But desperation had always come first. Until it was too late. Until she couldn’t stop it.

“So why did you do it?”

“Partially because if get into it and switch off it’s bearable, and you forget you’re doing it.”

“And?”

“And partially because I was desperate. No one here has ever given a fuck about me. No one at all. And it does get to the point where you’re willing to do anything. Even if I didn’t like the idea of it. every day if it meant that I had someone who loved me.”

“Even if Voldemort was incapable of love?”

“It was worth a chance. In the end, I don’t think I even really cared about that. I don’t really think I need the love.”

“So why did you carry on?”

“It’s not really something you can stop when it’s too far in motion. If I’d just stopped when I’d been befriending Albus, if I’d have just disappeared, that would have been far more suspicious that carrying on. I’d have ended up here. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

Granger didn’t respond and Delphi lay back on the bed, staring upwards again. She had just managed to pour her heart out in a way that admitted she had a heart. She had never done that before. Maybe that had been the tactic all along. Emotionally debilitating a person until they confessed pretty much everything about themselves seemed like it would be a successful tactic.

_I take a deep breath before I knock on the door. If this is the wrong place, then I will have unwittingly made the opposite decision. If this is the right place, then I don’t know will happen. I don’t know where I’ll end up next._

_I knock._

_It takes a couple of minutes before the door opens, and with every passing second, I get more and more anxious. What if they don’t want to help me? What if they don’t want to acknowledge who I am? What if they don’t want anything to do with me?_

_The door is opened by a vaguely elderly woman with a slightly concerned expression on her face. She stops as she sees me, stood silently on her doorstep. And for a moment, neither of us say anything. I don’t know what to say. She doesn’t speak.  
_

_“Narcissa?” a man’s voice echoes from within the house. “Narcissa, who is it?”  
_

_“A girl,” Narcissa calls back._

_The man appears behind her and I look at him. I know who he is. I know who the man with long blond-grey hair and a permanent sneer is.  
_

_“Well,” Lucius Malfoy half-snaps, “who are you?”  
_

_“Your – your niece,” my voice cracks.  
_

_“We don’t have a niece.”  
_

_“Lucius,” Narcissa says softly, “remember, before–”  
_

_“That child is dead.”  
_

_“That was never confirmed.”  
_

_“You cannot honestly think that she is the Dark Lord’s child.”  
_

_“She’s got my sister’s hair.”  
_

_“So do a thousand other girls.”  
_

_“Please, sir,” I try to speak again without messing up my words. “I need – I need help. I don’t know what’s going on. I mean – a bit – I do – but I need help.”_

_Narcissa steps out the doorway, beckoning me inside, and I go, albeit entirely cautiously. She leads me through to a small room with two sofas and a fireplace. I perch awkwardly on one when she tells me to sit, waiting in silence as she walks away. I can hear her and Lucius speaking in hushed voices outside, but I don’t say anything. She seemed willing to talk to me. That has to mean something._

_When they come back, they sit opposite me, and I look at the floor. Lucius still eyes me distastefully, as if I’ve done something wrong. And I suppose I have. I suppose me existing, barging in like this, is something wrong.  
_

_“You’re claiming to be Voldemort’s daughter,” Narcissa says. “Who told you this?”  
_

_“Rodolphus.”  
_

_“And where is he now?”  
_

_“I don’t know. He abandoned me. A few weeks ago.”  
_

_“Why?”  
_

_“He told me there was a way to bring my father back,” I don’t see any point in hiding any of it. “I wanted to, and as soon as he saw that, he abandoned me. He said he didn’t want the illegitimate daughter of his whore of a wife to have a happy ending.”  
_

_“What was your name, dear?” Narcissa murmured._

_I stop. I don’t know my name. I don’t know what my mother wanted for me. No one ever told me. And I’ve never really concerned myself with this thought. I’ve told myself it doesn’t matter. It’s just another thing that sets me apart.  
_

_“I don’t know,” I admit. “Euphemia never gave me a name. She just called me Bellatrix. She said I was as bad a person as my mother was, so I could only deserve her name.”  
_

_“What do you want to be called?”_

_I think back to the books, my books. The stories that I love more than anything else in my world. The stories that would be the only companions I could ever need, if they could just love me back. And then I consider the fact that I’m being given a choice. The fact that I am being treated like a human being. Despite everything.  
_

_“Delphi,” I say softly. “My name is Delphi.”  
_

_“Your name is beside the point,” Lucius snaps. “Do you want to bring your father back?”  
_

_“I want someone to care about me. If that’s the easiest way to have that, then I’ll do that.”_

_Lucius stands up sharply, seizing my arm and pulling me towards the door. I haven’t eaten or slept properly for days, and I haven’t got the strength to fight back against the iron in his grip. _

_He drags me through the house and all but throws me out the front door. I stumble a few feet and look back at them, tears starting to pool in my eyes.  
_

_“Please,” I cry. “Please help me.”_

_I’m desperate now. All the stuff I told myself I wouldn’t do, all the stuff I promised myself I would hold back from, I’m doing it. I’m begging. Because I don’t want to hurt people. I don’t want to uproot everything anyone has ever known. But I want to be loved. I want someone to care about me. _

_And I’m scared that means more to me than not hurting people. _

_And if they won’t care about me at all, I’m scared what that means I will end up doing. If they won’t care about me, I know I’ll do something bad. And I don’t think I’ll regret it.  
_

_“Don’t come here again,” Lucius spits. “Don’t ever come here again.”_

_And then the door slams._

“What did you want to know?” Delphi sat up again, looking at Granger. “Because I have a rather busy schedule of existing for the rest of time. You can clear that schedule if you wanted – I’m still open to the option of dying.”

“I wanted to understand why,” Granger said quietly.

“And do you?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Will you help me understand something?”

“Yes.”

“Why does being ‘better than me’ involve actually hurting me more?”

“Death is the ultimate end–”

“And?” Delphi snapped. “Malfoy senior said I’d ‘rot’ here. And I tried to. And you just brought me back.”

“One day you’ll want to live.”

“Not like this. And before you say it’s simply because I brought it on myself, I didn’t really want to exist before I found out my father was reachable.”

“Then the Ministry will do better next time, but you cannot simply be excused.”

“I’m not asking to be. I’m just pointing out that the good guys are very good at being _good_.”

Granger didn’t respond, and Delphi slumped backwards again, sighing. She couldn’t be bothered to have a conversation like this now.

“Have a nice life,” she muttered. “As you can see, I have an eternity of existing to continue with.”

“I hope you find some peace.”

And with that, Granger stood up and walked out of the cell. As the door closed, the cuff around Delphi’s wrist disappeared and she rolled over, closing her eyes. She was exhausted. All she wanted to do was sleep. She didn’t want to think about what had happened. She didn’t want to care. She just wanted to fall into a place where no thought could touch her.

So, she did.

* * *

When she woke up, her mind started to wander, so she did too. She stood up, starting to pace. Somehow, they had healed her enough to give her the strength to pace. And she took it.

She had to get out. She had to get out, because she couldn’t face another day when she knew that was no chance that anyone would ever let her have any control over her existence. She had come close to death, and the moment that they had found out, they had brought her back.

She didn’t even understand why.

It would be easier on quite literally everyone in existence if they killed her. They knew she was guilty. It wasn’t exactly something anyone could question when she had tried to kill the person with the power to put her in Azkaban.

And yet, Granger’s words had struck some sort of nerve. Peace. She was supposed to find peace. Someone wanted her to find peace.

She laughed bitterly.

She couldn’t find peace. She couldn’t find peace when, in her entire existence, there were perhaps five moments where she had felt truly, truly happy. And most of those moments came tainted in the knowledge that, if those who had been a part of them had known who she really was, they would have been less than willing to allow her the happiness they had given.

But maybe she didn’t deserve to die.

If the woman she had tried to kill wanted her to find peace, maybe death wasn’t the only way out. Death had only been the first thing she had asked for because it been the first thing to come to mind in her desperation. And because it was the only thing she thought they’d grant her.

But maybe she could try something else. Maybe her second request – to have her memory wiped – maybe that could be an option.

Not by the Ministry. Obviously not them. But someone. Someone else.

If she could get out.

She only knew four people. She only knew Euphemia, Rodolphus, Narcissa and Lucius. Euphemia, Rodolphus and Lucius would probably murder her on sight. But Narcissa, maybe Narcissa would help her.

Maybe, once no one knew who she was, not even her, she could start everything again.

The more and more she thought about it, the more and more she realised she didn’t want to remember what she had done. She had killed and tortured and destroyed in the name of finding someone who probably wouldn’t have the capacity to love her.

Part of her knew that she deserved to have to live with the quickly-mounting guilt, but a larger part of her truly believed that she had shouldn’t. She had lived through hell for sixteen years. She had been abandoned by everyone she had ever known. She would rather wipe everything from her mind than live with guilt because she knew it was the right thing to do.

The right thing to do had never mattered to anyone. If it had, Albus’ father would have apologised to him immediately rather than trying to justify what he had said (Albus had never admitted this to her, but she had rifled through his head a little so that she could be accordingly sensitive). If it had mattered, she would have been given a trial, even though she knew it would have been meaningless.

If doing the right thing mattered, someone would have stopped as they walked past her frail figure lying on the street, and they would have said something. They might not have been able to support her in any way, but a word, a single word, could have changed her story in a way that she couldn’t really comprehend.

A single word.

She let out a sob as she leant her head against the stone walls. The cold shot through her body, but she took it gratefully. It tied her to reality. It tied her to the world around her. The world that she didn’t really deserve. But the world that she needed anyway. The world that she had always needed.

She screamed out, slamming her fists into the wall, and then she screamed again, this time in fear; she had been thrown back across the cell, and the stretch of wall she had been standing at had disappeared, crumbling away in the few places it still stood. She stared at it, and then she ran.

She ran out, into the air. Taking flight. Launching herself into the air and taking flight into the icy wind.

And she felt alive. For the first time since she had started down this route, she felt truly, truly alive.

She laughed, throwing her arms out so that her fingertips seemed to graze the clouds. She couldn’t feel the cold. She couldn’t feel the fear. All she could feel was alive.

Too alive to die.

But not too alive to know that this was temporary. The best part of herself was temporary.

And it wasn’t worth keeping every part of her for this one tiny, temporary piece.

She disapparated in mid-air, concentrating on appearing near Narcissa Malfoy’s home. It was the safest place. It was worth the risk of getting near Lucius, even if there was that risk. But, in her apparition, there had been half a second of hesitation.

She had never properly taught herself to apparate, preferring flight (and lacking a teacher), and now her hesitation screwed her over more than she realised it would.

When her feet hit steady ground, pain exploded in her shoulder, and her knees buckled. She crashed to the floor, shrieking with pain. She could feel her shoulder becoming sticky and warm, and she curled in on herself, trying to force herself to breathe.

The rags she was wearing barely covered her shoulder, but they were soaking through with blood. Her vision had started to blur with the pain.

But she had to get to the door. She had to stand and walk and get rid of her memory.

But maybe, maybe she didn’t have to.

She had burst the cell open without even thinking. Maybe, maybe she still had enough left in her body to destroy her own memory.

She raised her left hand (her right was now unmoveable due to her shoulder), and forced air into her lungs. One more piece of magic.

_“Obliviate.”_

The world became bliss. Bliss and pain.

And she didn’t know why.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope enjoyed that. I don't really know what happened. I went in with an idea. It splurged a bit. This came out of it.  
Thanks for reading  
Kudos and comments much appreciated  
Twitter: @evieadams273


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